Mike Sacks loves the movie Over the Edge

Humorist Mike Sacks loves the movie Over the Edge and had the unique privilege of writing an oral history that led to a DVD re-release with commentary tracks. We discussed the 1979 movie that featured first-time actor Matt Dillon, the DC culture that created Kavanaugh and teen culture in the 70s and 80s.

Follow Mike Sacks on Twitter, his website or just send him an email. (No, really)
Welcome to Woodmont College
Passing on the Right audiobook
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Show Links

Over the Edge IMDB
Over the Edge Oral History, Vice
Over the Edge DVD DVD
All Summer in a Day movie
Heavy Metal Parking Lot Heavy Metal Parking Lot
A description of Cruising the 'Bash and being goth in Terre Haute 
Cruising Rockville Pike

Breaking Away
Steve Martin and Terre Haute

 

Mike Sacks  0:00  
Hi, my name is Mike Sacks. I'm a writer, and my favorite thing is being a cool guy. Wait, no, that's my second favorite. My first favorite thing is the movie, 1979, "Over the Edge," starring Matt Dillon.

transcript follows

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Announcer  0:12  
Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones  0:24  
Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And it is Sunday, May 22nd, and I am back in Illinois. I'm no longer sitting in a hotel in Cleveland or a discount tire in Mishawaka, Indiana. Though, I had a wonderful weekend in Cleveland last weekend, and got home safe and sound. This weekend, my twin sister and my nephew Henry, came up to help my other nephew, Andy, make his move into a new apartment in Pilsen. So we had Thai food, we had Chinese food, and moving within a neighborhood, we remembered is so much easier than moving across town in Chicago. So, it was a really lovely day. 

Leah Jones  1:13  
Although, given my healing track, I just was a cheerleader, and did sit on a stool for a while and wash dishes. Because sometimes you got to do adaptive things, meet your body where it is. So, it was a really nice chill weekend, and I felt like I had more things to say about this week, and now I can't remember any of them at all. I did not have a chance to watch the movie we're talking about today with author Mike B. Sacks, humorist, and so I didn't watch "Over the Edge." I didn't watch the Barcelona Formula One race that was today, which I told Anna Tarkov, who I interviewed this week, that I would watch. But did I watch "The Circle?" Yes. Have I watched five of the eight new "Kids in the Hall?" "Kids in the Hall" is back; it's on Amazon Prime. This is the weekend apparently that Amazon is making the decision whether or not we get to season two. So I've binged a bunch of Kids in the Hall last night and got to wrap that season up this evening. 

Leah Jones  2:37  
I don't know -- things are pretty good until I go back into the MRI tube tomorrow to look at my spine. I had an infusion on Friday for my immunotherapy. Oh, actually, the big exciting news here is that I got a new mattress. I had had a Vera Wang for well over 10 years, and I just got a Big Fig mattress and some new fancy sheets --waiting for the sheets to come in. But after staying at the Hilton last weekend in Cleveland, I remembered I had already ordered the mattress. But I upgraded my sheets after staying in a luxury hotel and room remembering how nice luxury sheets and good pillows are. So, I'm currently in the process of making my bedroom the coziest place on Earth. 

Leah Jones  3:32  
So, I've got the Big Fig mattress, which is a mattress for people with big figures. And turns out that when I'm not rolling off the edge of the mattress, I don't cling to the side. So the cats and I are all sleeping a little bit more stably on the new mattress, so that's exciting. I hope you enjoy today's interview. Again, it's with Mike Sacks. He is a author, and humorous, he's on staff at "Vanity Fair." He's a freelance writer, he has audiobooks; he's got like four or five books coming out this year. I'll link to all of them in the show notes, we talked about many of them. Get your boosters, wear a mask, wash your hands and keep enjoying your favorite things.

Leah Jones  4:36  
Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. And this is the podcast where we get recommendations -- that's not it -- where we learn about people's favorite things and we get recommendations without using an algorithm. Today I am joined by cool guy, Mike Sacks.

Mike Sacks  4:56  
I made her say that --  it's a joke among friends, where we refer to each other as "cool guy," because we are the least cool people on Earth.

Leah Jones  5:05  
Well, Mike is a humorist and author, host of the podcast "Doing it with Mike Sacks, and Rob." I'm talking to Rob later this afternoon. 

Mike Sacks  5:14  
Oh, Rob. I love Rob. 

Leah Jones  5:17  
You've got a new -- so we were introduced because you've just finished publishing the audio book of your new book.

Mike Sacks  5:30  
Right, that's "Passing on the right."

Leah Jones  5:32  
"Passing on the right," which is a fictional autobiography of a comedian who decides to make millions by becoming a right-wing, douchebag podcaster?

Mike Sacks  5:45  
That's right. Basically, it's Judge Brett Kavanaugh, if he got into comedy. And this is someone -- I mean, this is all fiction -- but I grew up with people like Judge Kavanaugh outside D.C., and it's a sense of entitlement. So I'm going after politicians, the right-wing, and everyone in comedy that I hate.

Leah Jones  6:09  
I think I've heard you -- were you on "High and Mighty?" 

Mike Sacks  6:13  
No, I was on "Doughboys." 

Leah Jones  6:15  
Yeah, okay. Because when Rob told me about the audiobook, or he posted about it, in Doughboys, I was like, "I know this book. I've heard about this book." So that's what we have in common, then. 

Mike Sacks  6:28  
Well, that's great that you heard about it. 

Leah Jones  6:33  
Was the book, was "Passing on the Right," a COVID writing project for you?

Unknown Speaker  6:42  
I think I started it right before COVID, it took about eight months. I do know that I was searching for an ending, and January 6th came along. And that provided to me the ending so that I must have finished it right after that in 2021, maybe spring of '20. So about a year ago, I finished it, and it took about eight months. It was interesting, because it's written in the first person. It's sort of like a character actor playing out a role. So, I'm basically playing this author writing this book written in the first person. It's just an awful person, people I grew up with, entitled and rich and get to where they get because of their family money, and not necessarily because of any innate talent. It was just sort of a scream against that, and also against what I was seeing, and I'm still seeing in politics, which I grew up with in DC. I know, this type of person; I know all the associations behind the scenes. I know that very, very well, and it's just a load of shit. Anyone who would fall for it is usually shocked, typically shocked by it, and it just seems to be getting worse and worse. It was really my screed against everything that bothered me during during the lockdown.

Leah Jones  8:18  
Every year, it's just getting worse. And I know that part of the goal is just for us to be so overwhelmed with despair that we don't fight back. So, I do appreciate that you're fighting back with humor, because I think that can break through our armor

Mike Sacks  8:35  
I don't know. I mean, I think about this often, where you look at what Jon Stewart did every night. Look at what Stephen Colbert is doing every night. I don't know if it's moved the needle much. I grew up with this, and what I see is that most of us want to go out there and live good lives and have a family and have a career and leave others alone to what they want to do. It's their own business. But the problem is, these fucking maniacs are out there in these Northern Virginia, Alexandria, boardrooms, these associations -- while we're living our lives and thinking everything is going normal, they are devoting their lives for madness, for craziness, for right-wing nuttiness. 

Mike Sacks  9:20  
It's almost like -- I look at it as like we're inside of a fort and zombies, berserkers are outside the fort. We constantly have to defend ourselves. And the fact that these people are devoting their lives taking away women's rights to choose, of putting prayer back in school, to getting rid of public education, to fund the Pentagon, where we have more bombs and bombers, but we don't have libraries that are open five days a week. I mean, WHAT are we fighting for, exactly? That's what kind of nation are we fighting for? A lot of the time  -- I mean, I know these type of people, they may not even believe this shit, but they know that others believe it, so, it's a sense of power. 

Mike Sacks  10:07  
And I can tell you that people who get into this -- lobbyists and other line of work -- they're really egotistical nerds, dorks, the worst type, and that they think they're tough. They wear their red, white, and blue bow ties and suspenders, and they strut around D.C. like they own the town -- they probably do. But it just infuriates me that in the year 2020, we still have to devote any of our thoughts and lives to this. I mean, it's almost like a second job or third job for me. I have a steady job, where I work at "Vanity Fair," I have a second job, where I write freelance and write books. And this to me, is a third job, keeping track of the fucking nut jobs and is exhausting, and just the fact we have to do it is very frustrating. So, I wanted to tackle that sort of world. 

Mike Sacks  11:00  
It's a very insular world, D.C. I don't think it's a world most people understand, and that's what I wanted to go after. It's funny, because people used to ask me,  "Do you know Judge Kavanaugh?" Well, he's older than I am; I don't know him. But I said, I used to tell them, "He's like the people who went to, attended the rich, private school next to my elementary school; they used to throw rocks at us during recess." But listen to this, I just found out that he literally went to the school next to mine to 10, 15 years before I was there. It's called Modern Day; it's a very strict Catholic school. So he *literally* was at the school that I was using as an example of someone like him having attended. So this is that guy.

Leah Jones  11:46  
How do you think you escaped it? How did you end up out of that system?

Mike Sacks  11:54  
It was lonely, public school. It was public school all the way, and I had great friends. But D.C. is a very interesting town, it used to be a lot different. Since then, there have been comedians who have come out of there -- Patton Oswald -- who I know a little bit, has come out of that area. But it's not a very creative town at all, and everyone who was creative sort of knew everyone else. And at that time, that creativity wasn't in comedy -- it was in music, it was through Dischord Records. And Ian Mackay, of Fughazi and black, not Black Flag, but Minor Threat. 

Mike Sacks  12:28  
So there was some creativity, but most -- especially comedy -- was very mainstream. And pre-internet, pre-cable in a lot of cases, it was just lonely. And I felt very, very isolated. But I do know that town very, very well, because of that. I mean, I grew up there. But as far as finding my own, I had to leave D.C. to find my own. And I miss D.C. in a lot of ways, but when it came to what I grew up with comedy-wise, it was two things. It was Mark Russell on the Capitol steps. Musical parodies, political parodies, so a very straight-edged town.  A lot of ways I do love it, but it did really take some seeking out, looking outside of D.C. to find what I wanted, whether it was music, or comedy out of Chicago, or Toronto, or L.A. or New York. I think that has changed now but it was very isolating growing up; I have to say it was very lonely.

Leah Jones  13:33  
And you went to -- it says on your site you went to Tulane.

Mike Sacks  13:39  
I moved to New Orleans, after high school and went to school there and lived there for a number of years afterwards.

Leah Jones  13:45  
Nice. It is still on my list. I don't know how -- it feels impossible to me that I've never been to New Orleans.

Mike Sacks  13:52  
I'll tell you -- it's really unlike any other city in the country. It's a very open city, very forgiving city. People do think it's the Deep South, and it is, but people are very inclusive there and I made a lot of friends of different backgrounds that I didn't have in D.C. Different sexualities, different races, religions, and that, to me, is really what it's all about, especially when it comes to comedy. Meeting people who have your comedic sensibility, no matter where they come from, I'm gonna love them. And it's family almost, because I didn't have that growing up. So New Orleans was a great city to live in, as I was a teenager and entering into my 20s, because it was very open. And I did a lot of things I probably wouldn't have been able to do in D.C. -- both good and bad. It was a fun city, and I actually want to move there eventually, once my daughter graduates high school. To move back to New Orleans to live; I just love it down there.

Leah Jones  14:53  
Are you in New York now?

Mike Sacks  14:55  
Yes, I'm in Brooklyn. I did work in Manhattan, and I live in Parksville, Brooklyn.

Leah Jones  15:02  
So when you -- because you've talked about, I mean, you're humorist and a comedy writer, did you try stand-up or improv on your way to realizing you were a writer?

Mike Sacks  15:14  
No, I never had the balls to do that. I mean, that takes some serious fucking balls. I didn't have the nerve to do it. I had a fear of public speaking, which went away when I got on -- when I was heavily dosed with anti-psychotics, Wellbutrin and Prozac. So now I have zero fear of speaking and I'll get up and speak in front of everyone. So it was sort of a strange situation in that I never really read -- I hate readings. Never did stand-up, never did improv. But I've done a number of shows where I've opened for David Sedaris. And it's like opening for the Rolling Stones, like a bar band opening for the Rolling Stones. All of a sudden -- I did do a few readings where I was speaking in front of five people, maybe, and then it goes from that to 2,000 people. It's a very strange sensation. And once you do that, you don't want to go back to speaking in front of five people. Not that I can speak in front of 2,000 with my own work. So it's not even something that I do with my own work, it's just opening for David Sedaris. That's as good as it gets.

Leah Jones  16:19  
When you open for him, does he have specific essays he asks you to read or does he just say, "Mike, I want you to come out with me."

Mike Sacks  16:26  
He says, "Read whatever you want." I mean, he might say, "Oh, I liked that piece that you wrote, would you want to read it?" But he never -- it's totally freeform -- I have nine minutes to read whatever I want.

Leah Jones  16:40  
Wow. Is it a generous audience?

Mike Sacks  16:43  
Incredible. I mean, first of all, he comes out. And even before I come on, he introduces *me* to the audience.

Leah Jones  16:50  
Oh, that is amazing. 

Mike Sacks  16:52  
He's just the biggest mensch in the world. Basically, he's saying to the audience, "This guy's my friend, I like his work. Please show respect to this guy." And by doing that, the audience is 100% on your side. So then I read, and then I introduce him. But for him to come out first, that's just unheard of. He's just the nicest, most generous person of his ability level, of any writer, I know out there, more than anyone.

Leah Jones  17:21  
There's nobody who does a meet and greet the way David Sedaris does.

Mike Sacks  17:28  
*No one.*  No one at his level.

Leah Jones  17:30  
He stays until the last, every single person in the entire auditorium goes by that table. It's remarkable. 

Mike Sacks  17:37  
I've been in that situation where he likes me to keep him company as he's signing. No one's there to get anything signed by me, but I'm next to him. And I'm telling you, he's there till 1:32 a.m. and not a complaint, he loves it. I don't know of any other celebrity, certainly writer -- I know George Saunders is a hell of a nice guy. But anyone at his level, he could easily leave immediately. He stays for every single signing, and that's just unheard of.

Leah Jones  18:15  
So we're not just here to talk about your book, and your audiobook. We're also here to to talk about your favorite thing. And you mentioned a movie that I have never heard of.

Mike Sacks  18:31  
Yes. Okay. This is a very interesting movie. It's called "Over the Edge," came out in 1979. This is Matt Dillon's first role. He was discovered skipping school, outside of New York City, where he attended public school as a kid. He was 12, I think, and very interesting stories. Based on a real-life story that took place out west, outside San Francisco, where students were -- there was, at that time in the late '70s, it was big to have these towns that were built, where everything was designed for the adult in the sense that you live close to where you worked. It was a self-fabricated town. And they designed everything, except for things for the kids to do. So the kids went a little crazy out of boredom, and ended up committing a lot of vandalism and such. 

Mike Sacks  19:30  
So, they took that idea and made it into this movie called "Over the Edge" in this pre-fabricated society town in Colorado. Everything is designed to appease the adults, fake canals, tennis courts, and such, but there was nothing for the kids to do except one Quonset hut, and a little playground. So the kids, by the end, they're drugging and drinking and out of frustration. They  lock their parents into a PTA evening meeting at the school, and then light it on fire --

Leah Jones  19:42  
-- Holy Shit! --

Mike Sacks  19:57  
-- shoot out cars and such. So, this movie was out in 1979.

Leah Jones  20:12  
How did you find it? How did it come into your life? 

Mike Sacks  20:16  
Well, it was supposed to be playing in theaters,, but it wasn't, because the people who put it out felt -- they were scared because there's a few other movies that came out around this time, including "The Warriors," that was supposedly causing violence in theaters. Whether that was true or not, I don't know, but they were scared of violence. So they never released this in a theater, except for maybe a week in New York City. But it was a hit when they showed it, and it was sort of forgotten. Then with the advent of HBO, especially the early years, when they would replay a million things, they played this movie over and over again. And a whole new generation came to it, including Kurt Cobain, it became his favorite movie. And he later based the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video on "Over the Edge," with the cheerleaders from hell. But there's a number of things that strike me about this film that I really love. First of all, it features real kids playing kids. These aren't older actors playing younger kids, they look like normal kids.

Mike Sacks  20:18  
Which in the late '70s, into the '80s -- all the John Hughes movies were people in their 20s playing teens, we had people in their 30s playing teens on TV. So kids playing kids was remarkable.

Mike Sacks  21:37  
And not only kids playing kids, but kids that looked like my friends. I mean, these weren't models, we're talking about; these were normal looking kids. And a lot of times these were kids discovered in either California or Colorado either at malls or schools, and they looked normal. So, that was one thing that appealed to me as a kid. Another thing was, it was one of the first movies to feature a soundtrack of current songs. This is something John Hughes later did with his movies, but in the late '70s, it really hadn't been done. 

Mike Sacks  22:10  
"Mean Streets" had done in the early '70s, with songs from the '60s. But this was present-day songs. So you have songs by Cheap Trick, Little Feet, Jimi Hendrix. A lot of songs just you would not hear in a movie. So, that appealed to me, too. And also the story appealed to me. To me, it was a very American movie, almost a modern-day Western, where it was the kids versus the adults. As a kid, myself, being bored and feeling like an outsider, it spoke to me, this movie. It's not a Criterion Classic, necessarily, but it's a type of movie that I think if you see you won't forget, especially if you were a kid. 

Mike Sacks  22:59  
And a lot of the people who were involved with the movie, later went on to make great movies. The writer, there's two writers, and one of them, Tim Hunter, went on to direct "River's Edge," which is another classic teenage movie. So, they just understood teenage -- I mean, they were all really young -- Jonathan Kaplan, the director, was in his early 30s. So they weren't removed from the world that they were talking about.

Leah Jones  23:29  
Yeah. So, you found it on HBO. And truly, great memories of my childhood, are HBO free weekends, where you would j-- we might rent a VCR for the weekend, so we could tape movies down from HBO. So once you saw it, was it one that you --  did you tape it? Did you get a copy of it, so you could rewatch it? Or did you see it as a kid and then seek it out again, as an adult?

Mike Sacks  24:08  
Well, what happened was I had seen it as a kid, and sort of saw it a few times and liked it a lot. But, I didn't have any means of taping it, so it was only when I was in college in New Orleans, I had a professor who taught pop culture. And we studied the movie in this class. This guy's name was Van Cagle, and he was really the one who set me on my path to write -- he's the one who said , "You should get into it." I never thought about it before. I'd never written anything; I didn't think I was capable of doing it. I didn't know  anyone who knew any writers; it's a very distant world.

Mike Sacks  24:46  
I wrote an essay -- he showed it in class -- I wrote an essay about it, and he loved it. And he's really the one who said, "You know, you should think about becoming a writer." He's since passed away, but he was one of the best teachers I ever had. It was a really interesting class in that the things that I truly loved -- it showed me that I could study them and I could use them in my own career. And by going back and looking at the movie now, as an 18 year old, I came to it in a different way. And I rewatched it somewhat recently, and I came to it in a different way now as an adult, and as a parent. 

Mike Sacks  25:21  
It's just a movie that since I watched in college, I've been telling friends that they really have to check out. I ended up writing an oral history for "Vice Magazine" about 10 years ago, where I reached out and sort of got everyone together and talked about this movie, and they had been forgotten about. It had been sort of off the radar. But since I put that oral history out, it's now come out as a DVD with commentary tracks. And I think a very punk movie. It appeals to people who weren't happy in high school; don't necessarily want to watch John Hughes type movies. It's a very rock'n'roll movie, a very American movie, and it just appeals to a certain type of person like myself who didn't necessarily fit in in high school.

Leah Jones  26:12  
I pulled up the IMDB and I pulled up the soundtrack. Looking at the pictures, I feel I think I must have seen this -- it looks very familiar. I'm 45, so I think it probably would have been on HBO when I was on some of those free weekends.

Mike Sacks  26:35  
Yeah, I'm sure it was. Now if your parents knew about it, they may not have allowed you to watch it. 

Leah Jones  26:40  
Uhhhh -- No, my parents famously sent my brother to the record store to buy a second copy of Two Live Crew's "As Nasty as They Wanna Be.'

Mike Sacks  26:52  
Wow. What was the first one for? 

Leah Jones  26:54  
The first one was my brother's. The second one was so that my mom could make a stand against First Amendment -- No, FOR the First Amendment.

Mike Sacks  27:04  
Wow. Okay, so you were like I was in a sense, where you were kind of feral, like, your parents didn't know what the hell was going on? Yeah, I could watch whatever the hell I wanted. But I had friends who weren't allowed to watch Over the Edge -- they considered it to be too much of anarchy -- to represent anarchy. But it is a movie I think that you would love, having come up during that time. Maybe a little bit before your time. I'm sure you knew older people, older sisters or older friends, who were around the age that these people were in '79.

Leah Jones  27:40  
Oh, I'm sure. Also looking at the pictures sort of blends -- I think it's blending in my memory with other memories of -- I just Googled it. I think it was a Ray Bradbury "Summer in an Hour? Summer in a Day?" It was a short movie about a human colony on another planet where it rains.

Mike Sacks  28:06  
Oh, I remember that -- wow! Yeah, the one day it doesn't rain, they go out.

Leah Jones  28:13  
And the one girl who believes that the flowers are going to come -- they trap in a room and she doesn't get to go outside for it?

Mike Sacks  28:19  
I remember this -- I didn't realize Ray Bradbury had written that.

Leah Jones  28:23  
I think it's Bradbury. It's either Bradbury or Orwell, but I think it's Bradbury.

Mike Sacks  28:28  
Wow. Yeah, that is a story I remember hearing in elementary school and never forgetting, but I didn't know that was -- that's really interesting.

Leah Jones  28:35  
Yeah. And I looked it up because we just had 42 days without sun in Chicago, and that's how I was feeling.

Mike Sacks  28:48  
It seems like that is the case everywhere. Seems like it's been raining since January.

Leah Jones  28:55  
So I feel as I look at these pictures, it's sort of merging with that. And it's merging with "The Lost Boys." Which was Kiefer Sutherland -- it was a vampire movie in the '80s. Later in the '80s.

Mike Sacks  29:11  
That's right. A version of "People are Strange" by The Doors, but redone by Echo and the Bunnymen.

Leah Jones  29:16  
Yes. Yeah, that was a movie we watched a lot growing up.

Mike Sacks  29:21  
I love that movie, actually. Could be Keifer's best role.

Leah Jones  29:26  
It's such a good movie. I rewatched it during COVID -- we did movie nights on Zoom with some of my girlfriends. It was fun. And we rotated who brought the movie of what we thought sexy movies were when we were teenagers. So "Lost Boys" and "Young Guns" were the two that I brought to the table.

Mike Sacks  29:53  
Yeah, that's it. I wonder what my "sexy" -- well, I had a crush on Molly Ringwald. I do know that --  it didn't take much for me to find something -- say I mean, pre-internet pre-cable everything was sexy,

Leah Jones  30:09  
In our friend group, you were either a Keifer girl or a Christian Slater girl.

Mike Sacks  30:14  
Did you see "Pump Up the Volume?"

Leah Jones  30:16  
 Yes. 

Mike Sacks  30:17  
Okay.  Yeah, good movie.

Leah Jones  30:19  
Good. But I saw "Heathers," I maybe saw "Pump Up the Volume" twice. But I saw Heathers endless times.

Mike Sacks  30:27  
So you were a not a Keifer girl. 

Leah Jones  30:30  
No, Christian Slater, all the way, all the way. Yeah. 

Mike Sacks  30:33  
I mean, I kind of liked his attitude, Christian. It was especially -- in "Pump Up the Volume," I liked that. Someone who was quiet during the day, but at night would just let loose on the airwaves. 

Leah Jones  30:47  
So have you -- is your daughter old enough? Have you introduced her to Over the Edge yet?

Mike Sacks  30:54  
Oh, she would have no interest. I tried to show her John Hughes movies, and there's just zero interest. The one movie that I liked as a kid, that she likes, is "Beetlejuice." That's it. Because otherwise she's a very -- I don't want to say goody-goody, but she doesn't like cursing or foul language -- she's only 13. But there's a lot she doesn't like. I mean, I was watching "Taxi Driver" at her age and I remember going to see "Porky's" in a theater with my parents. Yeah, so different childhood, but it's fine. I mean, I'm not gonna force the shit on her.

Leah Jones  31:41  
No. No. I haven't rewatched Beetlejuice in a while that is such a good -- 

Mike Sacks  31:50  
-- oh my, God, it is so clever. And the special effects are so well done. I mean, none of it is computer; it's usually claymation or other. But, I prefer that. I like that old-school style of special effects.

Leah Jones  32:07  
Yeah, and the practical effects and the costumes -- just tremendous.

Mike Sacks  32:13  
And the music -- I think that was the first soundtrack by Oingo Boingo's Danny Elfman.

Leah Jones  32:33  
With Over the Edge, when you got the cast back together, or the cast and crew to do the oral history for Vice -- did you get to get everybody into a room together? I mean, 10 years ago, we thought nothing could be done on the phone and everything had to be done in-person. Were you doing one-on-ones? Or did you get everybody together?

Mike Sacks  32:55  
It was one-on-one for the article. But then for Vice, Vice got everyone together, most people together, for a viewing in New York City. And the cast got together -- some of whom had not seen each other from '79 -- Matt Dillon was not there. I tracked down everyone, except for one character from the movie. And this won't mean anything to you, because you haven't seen the movie. But there's one kid who was mute -- he plays a little kid who doesn't communicate by talking. But just by his hand gestures, and when he's on the phone, taps. One tap for "Yes," two for "No." And I could not locate this guy --I even hired a private investigator to try to find him.

Leah Jones  33:42  
 Wow!

Mike Sacks  33:42  
What's interesting is, this was the character that most closely spoke to Kurt Cobain. This was a character he was obsessed with as a kid, the kid in the movie who could not or *chose* not to communicate. Which, I always thought was really interesting. So the producer was there, the director, most of the actors, and it was in New York City, and it was really fun. It was a good crowd for it, and people were really into it. It was a fun thing to see that my little interest became a reality that others could enjoy.

Leah Jones  34:24  
What does that feel like to be able to be -- 

Mike Sacks  34:29  
-- to be a cool guy?

Leah Jones  34:31  
To be a cool guy, who convened your childhood favorites--  first, in an article, and then in a room?

Mike Sacks  34:37  
It was very surreal, because I never ever, ever thought I would be given an opportunity to write anything; it was a very insular childhood. My interests were -- I kept them to myself -- although I would tell people about it, they would have zero interest. Whether it was movies or comedy, or the books I was reading, or anything, and to bring it out into the world, and to have others find it and also enjoy it, is a great thing. And I think that's really the advantage to growing up in a post-internet society. 

Mike Sacks  35:13  
People talk about all the negatives, and there's plenty of negatives. But the fact you can find your crowd, your scene -- it is a big, big thing, I think, for kids. I was OCD as a kid, and if I had had the internet, I would have done research on and found others had it. I didn't know anyone else who had it, and I was totally alone. So, I think the solitary aspect of childhood doesn't have to exist like it did when I was growing up.

Leah Jones  35:43  
I think that's true. I remember when my sister was pregnant with her first, and had a baby at home, and had moved to a small rural town in Illinois. So finding like-minded parents was very difficult. But this was before mommy blogging became Tik Tok and -- before, slightly before -- and she was able to build a digital cul-de-sac of people who parented like her, and get the support that she needed. And I think it's such a gift that the Internet gives us; that we're able to build, find the people, like us, it gets you out of isolation. I think it's a tremendous value.

Mike Sacks  36:42  
Totally, at any age, especially when you're young, and you have interests that others don't. I had friends who were closeted growing up, and had other issues, and they were even more isolated than I was. So, the fact that you can be 12,13, 14 years old and come out of the closet to people online, is a tremendous thing. Because to be alone with something you don't understand at that age -- for me, it was OCD and depression -- to reach out to successful people who have it and for them to say, "Listen, it's okay. I had this, too," I think it's a tremendous, tremendous gift, and it's just never existed in human history. And it's so new, I don't know if people coming up now even appreciate it. But to have like-minded people you can reach out to, I think is amazing.

Leah Jones  37:36  
 Do you have other --- now this is on me, for not doing a full deep-dive on everything you've ever written, but I do very little research for this podcast. 

Mike Sacks  37:48  
Good -- I like that.

Leah Jones  37:50  
Are there other movies or pieces of pop culture that you have on your wish list of oral histories you want to write or if you could do what you did for Over the Edge, that you would want to be able to try it again?

Mike Sacks  38:06  
The only other movie that had that effect on me was a documentary called "Heavy Metal Parking Lot." It was shot in 198,  right where I grew up, maybe 30 miles east of where I grew up, northeast. And it was shot in the parking lot of the Capitol Center, where concerts took place. And it was Judas Priest -- it was before Javudas Priest show. And when my daughter asked "What was your childhood like?" I just show her this. But this is a movie that was underground for a long time, bootleg versions would exist. But it's now something you could type into Google and look up on YouTube in two minutes and find it now. 

Mike Sacks  38:50  
It's maybe 18 to 20 minutes of these two local guys in Maryland. And I've since met -- not met them -- but met them online and talked to them about it. They went out and pretended they were from MTV, and they went out to interview the fans of Judas Priest before the show. And what they captured was a very, very specific time in American pop culture, a very interesting segment of sort of outcasts, those who felt -- you know, we were talking about finding your gang, your family -- and this group, you could tell, were all outcasts at the high school, but they came together for the love of heavy metal and Judas Priest and it's just a crazy bunch of characters, most of whom are stoned or drunk. 

Mike Sacks  39:39  
It's also a look into another time when kids, like myself, were just wild and feral and you could just disappear for the day and then just come back at night. And there was really no questions asked; you were just totally on your own. And I think that is a world -- and I can see it now with my daughter -- I mean, I'm *encouraging* her to be more independent and to go out there, but there's no real interest for it anymore. So if you haven't seen "Heavy Metal Parking Lot," I highly recommend that you watch it. It's it's a great slice of Americana.

Leah Jones  40:16  
It sounds to me like -- so we're from Indiana. I mean, cruising is not special -- like, every town pre-internet had like places where kids parked cars and cruised  -- so in my hometown it was called "Cruising the Bash," and it was Wabash Avenue.

Mike Sacks  40:37  
I ike that -- that's nasty.

Leah Jones  40:40  
Yeah, it was like, from the Kmart parking lot down to the Arby's. And these are the parking lots where you could park and hang out, and these were the streets where you drove between. 

Mike Sacks  40:52  
I love that. 

Leah Jones  40:53  
So your description reminds me of when I was a kid, because I would say by the time even I got to high school in the early '90s, "Cruising the Bash" wasn't something people were doing much anymore. But driving down Wabash Avenue, on a Friday or Saturday night in the 80s? Kids just hanging out, sitting on their cars, smoking cigarettes. 

Mike Sacks  41:18  
And at that time, and I know this from having cruised along Rockville Pike where I grew up, all you wanted to do was escape. But when you look back, it was just heaven. I mean, you knew so many people that you would pass, anything could happen. I could stay out as long as I wanted. I had my own piece of shit '71 Buick Electra car that got seven miles to the gallon. Just riding back and forth, all you wanted to do was escape and make it. But when you look back after you've so-called "made it," those were the days that if I could I pay any amount of money to go back to that. That, to me, was just the best.

Leah Jones  42:01  
We would, we would say things like, "We're going to the field. We're going to the stadium. We're going to the green house," which was just a vacant house that was painted green that we'd sit on the porch. It was very -- just to just go sit and be with each other and see how big a torch you could make an Aqua Net bottle into.

Mike Sacks  42:30  
We would light ping-pong balls on fire. Time was endlessl you just thought, "This will never end." And what I wouldn't give to have an afternoon to go behind the electrical towers and light ping-pong balls on fire now. That, to me, sounds heavenly. Or, I used to go to the baseball field and shag baseball flies with a friend all afternoon. That world has disappeared, and that is what I'm nostalgic for. So Indiana --  is it northern Indiana?

Leah Jones  43:13  
Central Indiana -- I'm from Terre Haute. 

Mike Sacks  43:15  
Okay, so, the two pop culture references I have to Indiana are "Breaking Away," the movie

Leah Jones  43:21  
Yep -- about the little 500 --

Mike Sacks  43:23  
-- which is a bicycle race at University of Indiana. And then, Gene Shepard, who wrote a lot about Northern Indiana. He was the author behind "The Christmas Story" and other.

Leah Jones  43:35  
Yes. So, in "The Christmas Story," when he goes to see Santa, they say "The line stretched all the way to Terre Haute." So, that's where I'm from.

Mike Sacks  43:47  
Nice --  I never even caught that -- that's interesting.

Leah Jones  43:51  
It's also where Larry Bird played college ball. So, when he played at ISU, he did one year in Bloomington. And he and the coach that threw chairs, that was very abusive -- Bobby Knight. He and Bobby Knight did not get along. He went to ISU and was our one superstar player. And then at the end of "The Jerk," I think it's the movie, "The Jerk." Steve Martin is trying to set a nuclear bomb on the U.S. No, it's not The Jerk --

Mike Sacks  44:35  
-- it's the definitely not The Jerk. 

Leah Jones  44:39  
But it is Steve Martin. And the last lines of the movie are -- as he hits the button, and then it gets canceled, are "At least I got Terra Haute."

Mike Sacks  44:49  
That sounds like my wedding video; I'm now divorced. No, I would like to know what that's from -- that's definitely not The Jerk, maybe The Jerk Two? 

Leah Jones  45:00  
Let me, let me look it up.

Mike Sacks  45:01  
Yeah, I have to know. That's very specific.

Leah Jones  45:03  
"Steve Martin Terre Haute" Because they wound up bringing him -- 1979, he came for a  tour of Terre Haute, by the mayor, to try and fix the situation. 

Mike Sacks  45:20  
What was the situation?

Leah Jones  45:23  
Was that Terre Haute was the punchline of this nuclear bomb. So, I'm trying to find the

Mike Sacks  45:32  
I wonder if it was a TV special. 

Leah Jones  45:34  
Okay -- "In his 1982 film, 'Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid Shirts" --

Mike Sacks  45:39  
I saw that in the theater --

Leah Jones  45:40  
-- Martin's character saves the world from a sinister plot, except for Terre Haute, the only place wiped out by a deadly cheese mold."

Mike Sacks  45:48  
Directed by Carl Reiner. Great movie. Well, I have no memory of that. Yeah, the Midwest is a totally mystery zone for me; I just know nothing about it.

Leah Jones  46:06  
I'm from Indiana; I've been in Chicago for 20 years. I spent three years in Colorado, seeing if I was a Colorado person, and I am not. I'm very indoorsy.

Mike Sacks  46:17  
Good, me, too. 

Leah Jones  46:19  
So I had to move to Chicago, where nobody expected me to strap pieces of wood onto my feet and go down a mountain. 

Mike Sacks  46:29  
Yeah, I'm with you know that one. Chicago is more my speed; I love Chicago. Fantastic.

Leah Jones  46:36  
I love Chicago and move there to try -- I tried stand-up comedy when I moved Chicago.

Mike Sacks  46:43  
Oh, that's ballsy. What was your character? Was it you accentuated?

Leah Jones  46:49  
Yeah, it was me accentuated. It was a pretty clean act. I was coming out of working in college as a student affairs person in a college, so I sort of had a goal of doing the college circuit. But I just realized I didn't have it -- I just didn't have it in me. Like I was auditioning for the first season of "Last Comic Standing, " and I stood in an alley in January for six hours waiting for an audition. And honestly standing with my peers, in the light of day, for six hours, when we were all sober. And in the sunshine, I was like, "I don't think these can be the men that I spend my life with." 

Mike Sacks  47:36  
You made the right decision. Just the fact Jay Mohr hosted that first season. [laughter] Do you know, Maude Newton, she's a Chicago lass whom I love. And she was involved, and I think she still is involved in the comedy scene.

Leah Jones  47:55  
Her name is very familiar.

Mike Sacks  47:57  
Also Rebecca, I'm trying, I'm looking at her name now. She's very funny comedian from Chicago, African-American. And I've known her for a while, but I think she's still in Chicago. Anyway, I'll find it and shoot you over her name.

Leah Jones  48:17  
I went to open mics with like, Kyle Kinane, Pete Holmes, and Kumail Nanjiani. 

Mike Sacks  48:25  
Wow, good crew. 

Leah Jones  48:27  
Yeah. And they all you know, stuck with it. And 10, 15 years later, were overnight successes.

Mike Sacks  48:33  
Right? That's what it takes. But my God, it's a brutal amount of time you have to spend in clubs at 1 a.m., eating turkey sandwiches, you just want to kill yourself.

Leah Jones  48:47  
And so I just decided, this isn't for me. And so I went on to -- I've got a career in marketing, and then my COVID hobby is podcasting. 

Mike Sacks  48:59  
See, that is what I recommend to people; to have a two-track system where you can make a career where you earn your dough and have your insurance, and then on the side, you are free to do whatever and however you want. And that is a true freedom because I know people who are in writing, who get into comedy, who end up doing things they don't want to do. Because they have to make a career at it and they're miserable.

Leah Jones  49:27  
Yeah, no, it was a lot to make peace with that -- having artistic pursuits on the side or that writing. I think something I came to terms with in the last few years, was that it's okay to be an amateur. I do not have to want to get onto a late night, get a late night set in order to do a podcast. Occasionally, I'll still go to an open mic, but it doesn't have to be because I'm striving for stardom anymore. It can just be because it's really fun to have a crowd laugh with you. And, sometimes you need that endorphins.

Mike Sacks  50:10  
Of course you do. I think just for your soul, it's so healthy to do what you want to do,  because, for why you got into it.  I got into comedy because I like laughing with friends, and I like putting out little things. And you soon find that oftentimes, when more money is involved -- the more money involved, the less freedom you have. And that is not something I want to do. You know, I had friends that wrote for sitcoms, and they wanted to kill themselves or friends who wrote for late-night TV. These are jobs that sound amazing when you're a kid, driving back and forth at night and talking, writing for a late-night show sounds like a dream. But in reality, it's drudgery. In the end, I really do think you have to do what you want to do. Otherwise, there's no purpose in doing it. I mean, that's why you get into it.

Leah Jones  51:08  
For me, I have really appreciated that podcasts have open, demystified, what those careers look like.

Mike Sacks  51:16  
Yep. Because that's another thing I didn't know from them. And they sounded magical to me, but when you hear people talking about it, I am like, not so magical.

Leah Jones  51:23  
No it sounds, it's just brutal. 

Mike Sacks  51:27  
Well, here's one thing I learned; this is a lesson. I put out two books, have interviews with comedy writers. And this is what I tell young writers now and I tell myself this, and people think it's a joke, but it is not. Everyone is miserable, everyone wants to do something else, no matter at what level. And the sooner you realize that, the happier you will be -- that it doesn't matter. Even if you're Mel Brooks, that he's miserable, that he wants to achieve, and he's being held back. And he's not putting out what he wants to do. So you really have to wend your own path, make it happen on your own, put out what you want. And only then will you feel any fulfillment.

Leah Jones  52:14  
I'm curious about these -- so, you've got your two books of interviewing comedy writers. One is called "Poking a Dead Frog." And one is, "And Here's the Kicker." Did those start with one interview that you did for an outlet, and then, you put them together into a book? Or did you pitch them as a series of --

Mike Sacks  52:43  
-- no, I pitched them as a series of interviews. The first one came out, I think, 2009. That means I started in 2007 pitching, and no one -- I pitched to 20 different publishers and agents and they all turned it down. Because at that time, there were no podcasts, there were very, very few outlets that talked about comedy. Now, you can find it everywhere. But I think even back then, maybe was The Onion AV Club. That was it; so very few outlets. And what I wanted to do was two things: One, I wanted to have an excuse to talk to my favorite comedy writers and to pick their brains and to say, "What worked for you and what didn't work, what would you recommend a young writer do and not do?"

Mike Sacks  53:32  
 Also, it was, I came to the realization that a lot of these people that I really adored, were in their '70s, '80s, and sometimes, '90s. And they weren't going to be around forever. It was a bridge to another time that I knew would not exist for much longer. So I wanted to interview people who wrote for Bob Hope, who wrote for the Marx Brothers who wrote for 1930s radio comedies. And I wanted to  reach out to them before it was too late because I knew, being a sports fan, that the people that I used to hear about in historical terms, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, were all gone, even people who knew them are gone. 

Mike Sacks  54:12  
And I also knew being a jazz fan, that a lot of these people that I love, Charlie Parker, and others weren't around anymore. So I wanted to talk to people just to have the opportunity just to pick their brains. I mean, someone who wrote for the Marx Brothers such as Irv Brecker, whom I interviewed, this is a kid who made a career starting at 15, 16, 17, working the streets, writing jokes to support his family and became friends with the Marx Brothers. That was astonishing. So those are the two reasons I wanted to do it, but no one was interested. And it was only because in the end, I was friends with John Warner, who was the head, at that time, of "McSweeney's" online. He started working at "Writer's Digest" out in Ohio. And he gave me the go-ahead to do this. And that was the only reason it got made -- that first book.

Mike Sacks  55:04  
 And then the second book, it was a little easier to sell. But what I found that's interesting is, I put out feelers about running a third book of interviews. And I think I'm past the point where it's -- it's just flooded; it's too many people doing it -- and the interest has waned again. 

Leah Jones  55:23  
People have too much, too much access.

Mike Sacks  55:25  
And quite frankly, doing interviews, not talking on podcast, but doing interviews for print, it's drudgery. It's a tremendous amount of research, upwards of 30 hours of research for each person, and I ended up interviewing 40 people for each book. So, it's a lot of work. You know, I would rather spend that time now on my own writing, rather than interviewing others.

Leah Jones  55:52  
Yeah. I am gonna need to get this for my my dad, because you've got your very first bullet for "Here's the Kicker," how screenwriter Buck Henry came up with the famous plastics lines for "The Graduate." Truly, if I had a nickel for every time my dad said "plastics" growing up, I would be rich, because he always -- every graduation, every time a young person in our family or extended network was having trouble figuring out what to do with their life. Constantly, ny dad was always like -- "Plastics."

Mike Sacks  56:33  
Well, how prescient was that line? I mean, you can sum up American society, and the downfall of American society, just by that one word. Truly brilliant. But what was interesting about that was --  that was a word, to, that my father used to say all the time. But what's interesting -- in interviewing these people, it could very easily have been something else. Just a word that felt right at the time, it wasn't like God came down and handed him a tablet that said "plastics" on it. It was just an arbitrary choice that he made at the time, not really thinking much about it, that just hit and lasted. And that was really the genius of that specific line. 

Mike Sacks  57:15  
And of him, and of others that I interviewed, they just had a sense of what would work and what would last, even though they didn't know it at the time. Making that connect -it's like writing a hit song. Like a Paul McCartney, right? He's just does it --  that's who he is. And these people just have the ability to connect through humor. That not only connected at the time, but has lasted through the ages. And that's very rare.

Leah Jones  57:42  
Well, Mike, is there anything about "Passing on the Right," the book, the audio book, the movie "Over the Edge?" Anything that I haven't asked you that you wanted to make sure to share today?

Mike Sacks  57:56  
One thing I do want to talk about, as I went against my own advice -- I hired a PR person for "Passing on the Right," and it was a total disaster. So, what I did was -- I actually wrote a book about that experience. So, that is a book about the marketing of "Passing on the Right." It's called, "I am Super Pumped, Let's Do This Shit," which is exactly what he told me. That is a Kindle only that's available on Amazon. And as you said, the audio book is that I am reading the main role of Skippy "Batty" Battison from "Passing on the Right." Also this Monday, I have a new book out from McSweeney's, which is a fake college catalog, a parody of a college catalog that goes out to high school seniors about a fictional college, that's just an absolute disaster. So, that will be available on the McSweeney's site.

Mike Sacks  58:04  
And that's "Welcome to Woodmont College."

Mike Sacks  58:55  
Yes, I co-wrote that with Jason Roeder of The Onion, and that was really fun to do.

Leah Jones  59:03  
Well, I guess if I want to know more about what went wrong with your PR person, I should read the book. Was this your first time working with a publicist?

Mike Sacks  59:12  
No, it isn't. But, it's only 1.99 on Kindle, so it's pretty cheap. But it is not my first time  -- I knew better. I always told people not to do it, but you get sucked in and he had  marketed a book that did quite well in the comedy field, and I thought there could be overlap. But after reading this book, people think it's fiction. It's not -- it's nonfiction -- that there is a gap between the sensibility that we have comedically, and the sensibility that agents marketers, producers, publishers have, is different. The type of comedy we like, is not the type of comedy these people like, so they don't -- this guy, in particular, never understood what this book was about, even though I explained it to him about 100 times. So, if he doesn't even understand a one page summary, how is he going to sell this book to others? It's just not going to happen.

Leah Jones  1:00:07  
Right? Well, I'm sorry that he's out there giving publicists a bad name. I mean, I worked in PR for a long time, so I've seen lots of bad PR.

Mike Sacks  1:00:21  
There's a lot of good PR, but you have to understand what you're selling. And if you don't, if you have no interest in learning more about it, people can tell that you have no idea what you're talking about. So, how can you then convince them to take a chance, especially when there's so much competition out there? Whether it's podcasting or audio books, or regular books, or movies or music? I mean, you're competing with a tremendous amount there. So, you need someone who understands the product, which is why I will never hire a PR person again.

Leah Jones  1:00:50  
So that's out on Kindle, audiobook is out now, Passing on the Right" is available. And "Welcome to Woodmont College" is available on Monday.

Mike Sacks  1:01:03  
Yes, that's through McSweeney's. Now, the audio for "Passing on the Right," is available now on Gumroad, but it'll be available on Amazon shortly.

Leah Jones  1:01:13  
Awesome. Yeah, Rob said that it was -- I'm looking forward to reading it, because he said there was this balance of how do you imbue the spirit of the book, which is this guy ... how do you make quality audio that sounds hacky?

Mike Sacks  1:01:34  
Well, that's what I deal with every time I read a book. Most of these fiction, humor books, are found, fake-found items that are satirizing media, American mediocrity. So how do you make something that is mediocre, not mediocre? It's kind of a, I don't know if it's called a trick, but it's something that I always have to balance is like, "How mediocre should I make the product itself?" I don't want to turn people off from reading it because I'm satirizing mediocrity. But when I write under characters I found, and each of these books are written under characters, and even the college catalog is sort of under a character. You can get away with a lot of things that I wouldn't have been able to get away with if I was writing under my own moniker.

Leah Jones  1:02:21  
Where can people find you online?

Mike Sacks  1:02:24  
Mikesacks.com.

Leah Jones  1:02:27  
And are you one for Twitter and --

Mike Sacks  1:02:30  
-- Yeah. I'm @mikebsacks on Twitter, and I'm on Instagram @MichaelSacks. And if you just want to email me, [email protected], I'd be happy to talk with you. I never understand writers who are too busy to talk to people who email me, how fucking lazy are you? And have you not had a real job of drudgery working as a temp for four years -- where you know, again, be appreciative of people reaching out. So, if anyone wants to reach out, ask about comedy or writing, I'd be happy to get back to them.

Leah Jones  1:03:02  
Wonderful. You can follow Finding Favorites on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, whereve. other fine podcasts are downloaded. I'm @ChicagoLeah on Twitter, @ChiLeah on Instagram. So, thank you, Mike, thanks for joining me this morning -- afternoon.

Mike Sacks  1:03:22  
Thank you. It's afternoon, I'm looking here, now. I super appreciate it. This is really fun. And enjoy your time in Cleveland, that's a place I've always wanted to visit. 

Leah Jones  1:03:32  
Thank you.

Announcer  1:03:34  
Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now go out, and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai